In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, diesSACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49.I remember when Webb was demoted. I find it fascinating that his report was at all even controversial. Maybe I imagined it but I plainly remember in the televised Iran-Contra hearings little boy scout Ollie North briefly admitting that the planes delivering arms to Nicaragua would return with drugs which were then sold in America and used to buy more arms. I still remember my jaw dropping, and then there was nothing. I didn't read about it in the paper the next day, no one mentioned it in the news. People I met who watched it seemed to remember it, but with no media feedback like me were beginning to thing they imagined it.
Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance."
Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office.
...
Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s.
The articles did not accuse the CIA of directly aiding drug dealers to raise money for the Contras, but implied that the agency was aware of the activity.
Major parts of Webb's reporting were later discredited by other newspaper investigations. An investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department found no evidence of a connection between the CIA and the drug traffickers.
In 1997, then-Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos backed away from the series, saying "we fell short at every step of our process." Webb was transferred to one of the paper's suburban bureaus.
"This is just harassment," Webb said after his demotion. "This isn't the first time that a reporter went after the CIA and lost his job over it."
Then came Webb's article. "aha! At last! No people will talk about what was said in the hearings." Nope, in the end the guy gets demoted. And now this.
Does anyone remember hearing about drug running in Oliver North's testimony? Did I wear a tin hat even in the eighties?
- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
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